Addressing Infosets with XPath

Description:In my May 2000 column, I reviewed the set of W3C recommendations that most developers consider the current core of XML. The XML Information Set (Infoset) specification was probably new to most readers, including those already actively using XML. This lack of awareness mostly stems from the fact that XML was originally defined in terms of a concrete syntax, as opposed to an abstract data model. This makes it hard to approach XML without first thinking about angle brackets. The Infoset specification (http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-infoset) takes a few steps back and standardizes the abstract data model implied by the XML 1.0 and Namespaces recommendations.